NOVANEWS

Time For Seasoned Professionals to Step Forward, If They Still Exist

By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor

The alternative media is powerful, no question about it. As with Wikileaks, Libya has also proven it is easier to influence than the MSM (mainstream media).

Through a combination of greed, blind stupidity and a total lack of familiarity with the region, the story of Libya has been hijacked, at least partially, by conspiracy theories, some dreamed up by Gaddafi himself, some by American friends, all duped.

The real game is civil war, an endless “low intensity conflict” that will be driven by select car bombings and assassinations, tribes turned against tribes, that has nothing to do with Gaddafi or oil or banks.

How is it being staged? Been reading the stories about “Al Qaeda?” The funny part, those peddling this fiction may believe it, they may even believe it will somehow help “Gaddafi,” their “man of the people” retain power.

Gaddafi died the second the UN Security Council voted for use of force. The abstentions of China and Russia were silent acceptance of “regime change.” Gaddafi died that day, he just didn’t know it. We all knew it, he was “dead meat.”

That same day, the vultures began circling his corpse, planning, not just how to spend Libya’s money but on how to keep spending it for the next 20 years.

There are two “realistic” takes on the options here. Gaddafi, a man increasingly mad, unstable, ran a police state where people were either kings or slaves and the slaves outnumbered the “kings” 20 to 1.

NATO – Against Gaddafi? – For Libyans?

The other? The CIA and NATO plotted against him and convinced an entire nation, with few exceptions, to turn on a benevolent dictator that had build a “workers’ paradise” for them.

This is the alternative media story, one that has become a joke to everyone but the dead piling up on the streets of Tripoli.

A good analogy, working for a company where you have a corrupt union that runs everything. You speak up, union thugs slap you around. You try to organize another union and you disappear.

Then we have history, real history, not the imaginary kind rewritten out of convenience. Do you wonder why everyone wants Gaddafi dead?

Of course he bought governments, Britain, France, Italy and, especially, the United States.

Gaddafi, next to Israel, is the biggest gun in the “neocon” Washington arena. He was the darling of Condi Rice, in fact he wanted her as a wife, he loved Bush, Tony Blair and had every right wing think tank on his payroll.

After Bush got into office in 2001, Gaddafi knew he would be around people of similar mind.

History. Gaddafi came to power in 1969, a devout Marxist when oil was cheap as dirt and fewer than 2 million people lived in Libya. He saw himself as a Cold War “centrist” like Tito or Nassar, even Nehru, able to court both sides, survive, prosper and stay independent when nation after nation fell to CIA plots.

Richard Helms – White House Cabinet Meeting

The last day or two, I have been communicating with Trowbridge Ford, one of the eras top intelligence analysts. His piece this week on Richard Helms is quite amazing. I was asking him today about Libya.

He says Reagan had been told Gaddafi had tried to kill him, 1981, just 69 days into his presidency. Now the general belief is George H. W. Bush.

John Hinckley, a poster boy for “MK Ultra” was clearly a Bush family asset.

Between 1981 and 1986, Vice President George H.W. Bush made it his personal task to make Gaddafi the fall guy for cover operations tied to Iran/Contra and BCCI.

This, of course, puts into real question any possible role by Libya in the Lockerbie incident. Some background on the BCCI, the CIA’s bank used for laundering drug money, financing Saddam’s WMDs, and enriching much of Washington’s elite:

Two decades ago, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a highly respected financial titan. In 1987, when its subsidiary helped finance a deal involving Texas oilman George W. Bush, the bank appeared to be a reputable institution, with attractive branch offices, a traveler’s check business, and a solid reputation for financing international trade. It had high-powered allies in Washington and boasted relationships with respected figures around the world.

All that changed in early 1988, when John Kerry, then a young senator from Massachusetts, decided to probe the finances of Latin American drug cartels. Over the next three years, Kerry fought against intense opposition from vested interests at home and abroad, from senior members of his own party; and from the Reagan and Bush administrations, none of whom were eager to see him succeed.

By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry’s investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients–it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to “fight the evil influence of the West,” and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry’s investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America’s first great post-Cold War security challenge.

Ambassador Lee Wanta – On Ice

Talks with Reagan insider, Lee Wanta, tell of Reagan’s hatred for Bush, the feeling he had been saddled with someone he would never be able to trust.

Let’s head back into that past for a bit. Its 1969 and Richard Helms sees a big opportunity in courting Gaddafi. Gaddafi has ambition, Gaddafi is a “player.” Gaddafi is charismatic.

His ambitions aren’t just in the Arab world but into Africa, a fertile playground for the CIA, where a dozen wars had been managed over the past decade.

We must also remember, Libya was a tiny country, very little oil revenue. Oil was dirt cheap then, prior to OPEC and the Oil Embargo tied to the 1973 war.

The west dictated oil prices and, though Gaddafi made noises about control of oil, the prices were still dictated out of Houston and Zurich.

Gaddafi also sat on the Mediterranean, an American lake, our fleet the only fleet, our military the only military, Soviet ambitions in Syria flanked by Turkey (still).

This was a time of political upheaval, Italy and France threatened by communism, Britain “flat broke” and no European Union. America was still bogged down in Vietnam and, as America withdrew, the capabilities built up in Vietnam had to be discarded or put to use elsewhere in new conflicts.

Suez Canal – Satellite Shot

Two choices came to mind: Central America and Europe. The general belief was that Israel had settled issues remaining from their combined attack on the Suez Canal, when France and Britain joined them in an attempt to kill Nassar and put a puppet government in Egypt as was done when Sadat was killed and replaced by Mubarak, the Netanyahu clone.

The 1967 War, called the “6 Day War,” an Israeli sneak attack authorized by Lyndon Johnson, meant to have full US support with another “Gulf of Tonkin” type false flag, in this case, the attack on the USS Liberty and the slaughter of its crew by Israel.

But the Liberty survived and the US stayed out. Israel won anyway.

When 1973 came around and Sadat reopened “negotiations,” the US stepped in again, Nixon with the stooge Kissinger at his back, an act Nixon would regret to his dying day.

1973 was a watershed, oil would never be cheap again but a road map for debt was being put together also, one that would go into high gear under Reaganomics, a restructuring, not just of the United States, but the world.

There would be no room for a middle class, there would only be market manipulations, phony currencies, debt upon debt and very few would be free of this cycle.

Massive economic power flowed into the hands of nations unprepared for such a windfall. Oil became a chess game with new areas of production representing political offsets, Alaska and the pipeline, the North Sea, Venezuela, Nigeria, Chad, Indonesia.

Thus we return to the subject at hand, Colonel Gaddafi, Libya and his new position, now awash with cash, ambitions no longer dependent on Cold War balancing acts or playing games with the CIA’s Richard Helms, his “protector.”

As few know, Gaddafi was a protege of Richard Helms.

Gaddafi needed Helms to survive and Helms needed a place to park CIA assets, as required by war plan contingencies as outlined in the documents we will never see, not unless Jonathan Pollard, Soviet/Israeli master spy had put you on his personal distribution list.

Iraq – Rumaila Oil Field Fire

Thus, as is so often used in drama today, we race forward, taking a lesson from recent times. Let’s look at Iraq. Studies that will never be published anywhere show that Iraqi oil shipped from both Basra and Ceyhan was handled in a cavalier and forgetful manner.

Every 4th ship was stolen, thus the healthy increase in oil profits by companies able to secure contracts with Iraq.

What isn’t seen as easily is that, for every dollar made in oil, the war in Iraq made 10 dollars for “security contracting” and “nation building.”

Thus, Haliburton, a company known for oil and gas, began selling food, running transportation services, building barracks (where shoody wiring electrocuted American soldiers), selling drinking water (scooped, untreated, from rivers filled with sewage, infecting troops with a myriad of diseases).

When the British tried to oust Gaddafi in 1970, a misunderstanding over the IRA. Helms stepped in. Gaddafi was his “golden boy,” worth a dozen petty dictators. Gaddafi had brains and star quality.

The CIA had owned dozens of dictators, the list itself is exhausting. Gaddafi was smart and the partnership was very good for both. Gaddafi had enemies, some around the world. The CIA would handle them and did so readily.

CIA – Circles Within Circles

The CIA had a “double game” to play, IRA, Red Brigades, Baader-Meinhof, Black September, PLO, P2-Gladio, a demonstration of force for the KGB.

However, by 1986, the new CIA, the clone built by Bush with Oliver North and gang, had pushed Reagan to the point of bombing Tripoli, all in response to false flag attacks orchestrated by a new generation of CIA handlers with a new game, one most conspiracy theorists call the New World Order.

The theories had been there, Kissinger’s version, Brzezinski’s, perhaps the more resilient of the two. Another factor, Zionism.

When did the US go from Nixon’s distrust of Israel to the virtual control of the latter Reagan years and every moment since?

Why did Carter have to be destroyed? What has he been trying to tell us of that time?

Jump forward to 2011. Gaddafi is dead or hiding or looking for asylum. Is he a war criminal? With 2000 confirmed dead in Syria, bombing in Gaza daily, tanks ruling the streets of Bahrain and the Egyptian Army locked in a struggle with a revolution that clearly controls the country, Gaddafi is a sideshow at best.

Was It Planned to Go On Forever ?

Back in 2002, when Gaddafi chose to join the “global war on terror,” pay the blackmail over Lockerbie and buy his way onto the world stage again, he thought himself a survivor.

After all, he was certainly smarter than Bush, less insane than Cheney and far more moral than Tony Blair, even on his worst days. Everyone could see that, couldn’t they?

The mantra was simple. All he had to do was say “Al Qaeda” every few days, take light jabs at Israel to keep his standing as an Arab leader, continue playing Palestinian factions against each other and he was home free.

Libya’s billions, some spent to modernize a country, but more were invested, personal wealth, intertwined into international banking, Rothschild partnerships, defense contracting with the US.

The big mistake was leaving too much in Switzerland, forgetting that they were the “home base” for the P2 “Freemason” terror groups and the real power capable of orchestrating his downfall.

Veterans Today reported this 6 months ago, never picked up by any of the news services, background ignored by the alternative media.

Libya isn’t the world’s first all corporate war.

Nobody expected a move against Libya, certainly not as a part of the drive for democracy that is sweeping the Islamic world. Moving against an oil giant with a military under tight controls based on tribal loyalties made Libya a poor target. For decades, Gaddafi has been playing every card with genius, savior of Africa, leader of the Arab world, closet friend of Israel, partner in the war on terror, Gaddafi had proven himself a master of “both sides against the middle” politics and quality theatrics. To the “Masters of the Universe,” however, it looked like time was creeping up on Gaddafi.

With his protectors, American and Britain, in economic ruins and and his nation seen as ripe for overthrow, wheels were set into motion.

Veterans Today continues, in this March 13 2011 article by Gordon Duff:

PLOTS WITHIN PLOTS”

Again we ask the question, what if everything you were told was a lie? Never has a conflict been more convoluted than the current civil war in Libya, a series of plots within plots. Thus far, all reporting has been childish conjecture or, as is almost always the case, misdirection.

The “other” story is Libya is one of oil, as expected but more, frozen assets, allies at each other’s throats and the “usual suspects,” international bankers, intelligence agencies and arms peddlers. There was, in fact, no popular uprising at all but rather a carefully staged and carefully orchestrated attack on Libya’s assets coordinated with another move by oil speculators to gut the American economy of that cash bubble generated by trillions in bailouts.

As with any unpleasant reality, the real direction to look is financial.

“Follow the money.”

THE SWISS PROJECT

The roots of the current “conflict” in Libya date back to 2008 in Switzerland. The groundwork was laid by Tony Blair in 2004 but we will come back to that in a minute. Truth is, as always, stranger than fiction and “fiction,” of course, is the basis of politics and foreign policy, Americans know that for sure.

Back in 2008, the Swiss arrested Colonel Gaddafi’s son, Hannibal along with his wife. The SWAT teams sent to the presidential suite of the luxury hotel slapped Hannibal around a bit, putting him in a holding cell for two days. The charge was beating servants.

The son, as a direct family member of a head of state, enjoyed full and very real diplomatic privilege in Switzerland. Was this part of a plan to incite difficulties between Switzerland and certain friends and business partners of hers and Libya?

We believe this provocation was purposeful and carefully planned. The Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, from the outset, took part in the planning and helped bring the participants together, eventually involving France and Italy, nations they are able to influence almost as much as the United States.

Gaddafi had been “set up.”

GADDAFI STRIKES BACK

In answer to this action, taken as an insult to Libyan honor (bolstered by a very strong relationship with the United States and Great Britain), Colonel Gaddafi ordered Swiss businesses in Libya closed, flights to Switzerland cancelled and removed $5 billion in cash from his personal accounts in Swiss banks.

Gaddafi also cut off oil exports to Switzerland. Libya is a primary source of oil for Italy, France, Austria and Switzerland. Two Swiss (Israeli) businessmen in Libya were detained.

Switzerland, with the very temporary support of Italy, created a “blacklist” in order to prevent Libyan’s from traveling, not only in Switzerland but throughout the 25 Schengen (EU) nations as well.

Gaddafi responded by calling for Jihad on Switzerland, asking all Muslims to boycott Swiss products, close ports to Swiss ships and withhold landing rights for all flights from Switzerland.

If you wondered why the conservative Swiss, an open society that welcomes refugees from around the world would pass a bizarre and obnoxious act outlawing minarets, the reason is simple. This was a planned provocation meant to push Libya to more extreme measures.

Switzerland was planning to organize their banks and those of the EU and seize Libya’s vast assets, tens of billions in cash, bonds, equities and land, inside the European Union. Libya’s good friend, Berlusconi, playing both sides against the middle, as usual, was first on board, followed by Sarkozy.

2004 TONY BLAIR AND THE AMERICANS

Run the clock back to 2004. Blair and Bush believed they had the two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan under their belts. Plans were underway to invade Iran, special operations groups from the US were being deployed to stage false flag attacks on American forces in the Persian Gulf. “Ground zero” would be Bahrain where Shiite groups were being lined up to appear allied to Iran. Key players were put in place at the highest command levels in the region, commanders tied to Neocon/Dominionist groups in the US, violent extremists willing to plan and execute terror attacks against American troops.

Why is Iran still there? Why didn’t the next “9/11″ come off as scheduled? The White House plans were derailed by Marine commanders in the region aided by members of the intelligence community still loyal to the US. This is not my story to tell but it is an important one. Real American heroes prevented a very real war and some paid a very high price. This isn’t “9/11″ with dissolving buildings and mystery missiles. The evidence is all there with provable treason leading to the highest levels of the US and “others” already ‘in the can.’

In March 2004, when Tony Blair, showed up in Tripoli, it was like an astral convergence.

The deal was simple. British Petroleum and a consortium of American oil exploration and supply companies would put Libya’s oil and gas industry on the map. Left out in the cold? France and Italy, the nations that had been with Gaddafi from ‘day one.’

What would Gaddafi get?

An invitation to join the Global War on Terror, the “two bit hustle” dreamedup by Netanyahu staffers now running Bush like a hand puppet. Imaginary “binLaden” and “Al Qaeda” would allow the globalist Anglo-Israeli/American franchiseto sweep Central Asia like a plague. Gaddafi bought a front row seat.

A “pass” on his WMD programs. Sham inspections of Libya’s nuclear,biological and chemical warfare programs, long in partnership with South Africa and Israel, would be swept under a rug, as they had been earlier by the SouthAfrican Truth Commission. Secret supplies of deadly VX gas produced at Roodenplatt Research Laboratories outside Pretoria by Dr. Wouter Basson were never destroyed as reported but transferred to Libya. (ref: Dr. David Kelly)

Africa: Gaddafi was allowed a free hand to create the African Union, an organization he headed until a few weeks ago. His goal of uniting Africa under a single currency and military force and Libyan leadership with corrupt leaders subject to Libyan petrodollars.

Tony Blair, in itself, a “mixed bag”

Libya and Africa’s New “Gold Backed” Currency

CAIRO: Fallen Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi may have emptied the country’s estimated gold reserves worth $ 10 billion and will use it to buy protection and wage a guerrilla war, the nation’s former chief banker has said.

“Libya had gold reserves worth $ 10 billion in Tripoli. Now that Gaddafi is on the run, he may have taken some of this gold”, Al Jazeera quoted former Libyan Central Bank chief Farhat Bengdara as having told an Italian daily.

Bengdara alleged that Gaddafi may use this bullion to corrupt tribes for his protection and saw chaos. The Libyan banker had deserted the Gaddafi regime few months ago.

The story is out of India, perhaps originating in Tel Aviv but more likely Zurich. The story is false, insanely so. Gaddafi’s gold reserves were his plan for creating a 100% gold backed currency for Africa. However, with only 9 billion dollars in gold, this was all talk. What was Gaddafi really up to?

What was this Africa bank about?

Gold Room – Piled Higher and Deeper

The story is interesting, both good and bad. In order to collateralize a currency that he claimed to be based on gold, required him to include other banks at a 20 to 1 ratio to underwrite his “reba-free” or “no interest” currency.

The problem was that the banks he went to were part of the American Federal Reserve system and to service his debt, the same 3% discount rate that pushed the US into the financial toilet would apply.

Gaddafi had only 144 tons of gold.

In effect, Gaddafi was recreating the Federal Reserve System for Africa, every bit of it, except he would be appointing himself “Alan Greenspan” for life.

His hard currency, at the time worth less than $3 billion, would barely build an oil refinery much less fund currencies replacing the nearly 1 trillion US dollars floating around Africa at the time, not to speak of the Swiss Franc’s, Euros and Pounds.

In the end, Gaddafi would end up with near dictatorial power over smaller states and never address issues of existing debt. Recent events in the EU demonstrate the clear failure of multinational currencies.

The goal was always a tool of control, pure colonialism, Arab dictatorship over the inferior “blacks” of Sub-Saharan Africa

In fact, Gaddafi, the banker’s enemy was simply an agent for the European banks, the same banks that turned on him in 2008. Currency backed by debt, underwritten by interest, even with a pittance of gold, as with Britain and the US, is still fiat currency, no matter how many speeches you make.

The Long Game in Libya

Al Queda – How Hyped Are They

Civil War. This is the goal, with more money to be made peddling, not just Libyan conflict but building a “legend,” inflating the phony ”Al Qaeda doll” and dragging the Bush era “war on terror” back to life.

The move, what drives it? With Karzai leaving office, with war with Iran on the eternal back burner, the new Cold War, the one that was meant to last for generations is running out of gas.

Even Afghanistan gets tired of fighting, if you can believe that. They are only just so stupid.

Pakistan will only allow Zardari just so long, playing the puppet before he is brought down.

India will take only so much exploitation, so much financial ruin in the midst of economic boom.

Theatre will move to Africa and Libya has been pre-staged as “ground zero” for the destabilization of Nigeria, the real target, and the entire Sahel.

Central Asia is considered “in the bag,” a “done deal” as it were. In the process, oil, and gas revenue has proven to be less dependable than the war economy and the debt it creates.

It is easier to start a war than to find oil. And, on to Libya and on to Africa it goes.

————————————-

Addendum: Perhaps appropriate for this more conteplative piece on Libya, is this offering from Israeli activist Uri Avnery. I get odd enjoyment out of people who say exactly what I had wish I had said but do it better. It is humbling.

Understanding the opposition to NATO’s intervention in Libya

By Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery argues that opponents of military intervention in Libya are motivated more by hatred of the USA and NATO than by any concern for the people of Libya.

Though the Bible tells us “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth” (Proverbs 24:17), I could not help myself. I was happy.

Muammar Gaddafi was the enemy of every decent person in the world. He was one of the worst tyrants in recent memory.

This fact was hidden behind a façade of clownishness. He liked to present himself as a philosopher (the Green Book), a visionary statesman (Israelis and Palestinians must unite in the “State of Isratine”), even as an immature teenager (his innumerable uniforms and costumes). But basically he was a ruthless dictator, surrounded by corrupt relatives and cronies, squandering the great wealth of Libya.

Déjà vu

This was obvious to anyone who wanted to see. Unfortunately, there were quite a few who chose to close their eyes.

When I expressed my support for the international intervention, I was expecting to be attacked by some well-meaning people. I was not disappointed.

How could I? How could I support the American imperialists and the abominable NATO? Didn’t I realize that it was all about the oil?

I was not surprised. I have been through this before. When NATO started to bomb Serbian territory in order to put an end to Slobodan Milosevic’s crimes in Kosovo, many of my political friends turned against me.

Didn’t I realize that it was all an imperialist plot? That the devious Americans wanted to tear Yugoslavia (or Serbia) apart? That NATO was an evil organization? That Milosevic, though he may have some faults, was representing progressive humanity?

This was said when the evidence of the gruesome mass-murder in Bosnia was there for everyone to see, when Milosevic was already exposed as the cold-blooded monster he was. Ariel Sharon admired him.

My enemy’s enemy is my friend – even if he’s a psychopath

“I was bombarded with messages from well-meaning people who lauded Gaddafi for all his good deeds. One might get the impression that he was a second Nelson Mandela, if not a second Mahatma Gandhi.”

So how could decent, well-meaning leftists, people of an unblemished humanist record, embrace such a person? My only explanation was that their hatred of the USA and of NATO was so strong, so fervent, that anyone attacked by them must surely be a benefactor of humanity, and all accusations against them pure fabrications. The same happened with Pol Pot.

Now it has happened again. I was bombarded with messages from well-meaning people who lauded Gaddafi for all his good deeds. One might get the impression that he was a second Nelson Mandela, if not a second Mahatma Gandhi.

While the rebels were already fighting their way into his huge personal compound, the socialist leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, was praising him as a true model of upright humanity, a man who dared to stand up to the American aggressors.

Well, sorry, count me out. I have this irrational abhorrence of bloody dictators, of genocidal mass-murderers, of leaders who wage war on their own people. And at my advanced age, it is difficult for me to change.

I am ready to support even the devil, if that is necessary to put an end to this kind of atrocities. I won’t even ask about his precise motives. Whatever one may think about the USA and/or NATO – if they disarm a Milosevic or a Gaddafi, they have my blessing.

”A Libyan victory, not a British or a French one”

How large a role did NATO play in the defeat of the Libyan dictator?

The “Libyan rebels, disorganized and poorly armed as they were, have won a remarkable victory. This would not have happened without real revolutionary fervour, without bravery and determination. It is a Libyan victory, not a British or a French one.

The rebels would not have reached Tripoli, and certainly not by now, if they had not enjoyed NATO’s sustained air support. Libya is one big desert. The offensive had to rely on one long road. Without mastery of the skies, the rebels would have been massacred. Anyone who was alive during World War II and followed the campaigns of Rommel and Montgomery knows this.

I assume that the rebels also received arms and advice to facilitate their advance.

But I object to the patronizing assertion that it was all a NATO victory. It is the old colonialist attitude in a new guise. Of course, these poor, primitive Arabs could not do anything without the White Man shouldering his burden and rushing to the rescue.

But wars are not won by weapons, they are won by people. “Boots on the ground”, as the Americans call it. Even with all the help they got, the Libyan rebels, disorganized and poorly armed as they were, have won a remarkable victory. This would not have happened without real revolutionary fervor, without bravery and determination. It is a Libyan victory, not a British or a French one.

This has been underplayed by the international media. I have not seen any genuine combat coverage (and I know what that looks like). Journalists did not acquit themselves with glory. They displayed exemplary cowardice, staying at a safe distance from the front, even during the fall of Tripoli. On TV they looked ridiculous with their conspicuous helmets when they were surrounded by bareheaded fighters.

What came over was endless jubilations over victories that had seemingly fallen from heaven. But these were feats achieved by people – yes, by Arab people.

This is especially galling to our Israeli “military correspondents” and “Arab affairs experts”. Used to despising or hating “the Arabs”, they are ascribing the victory to NATO. It seems that the people of Libya played a minor role, if any.

Now they blabber endlessly about the “tribes”, which will make democracy and orderly governance in Libya impossible. Libya is not really a country, it was never a unified state before becoming an Italian colony, there is no such thing as a Libyan people. (Remember the French saying this about Algeria, and Golda Meir about Palestine?)

Well, for a people that does not exist, the Libyans fought very well. And as for the “tribes” – why do tribes exist only in Africa and Asia, never among Europeans? Why not a Welsh tribe or a Bavarian tribe?

(When I visited Jordan in 1986, well before the peace treaty, I was entertained by a very civilized, high-ranking Jordanian official. After an interesting conversation over dinner, he surprised me by mentioning that he belongs to a certain tribe. Next day, while I was riding on a horse to Petra, the rider next to me asked in a low voice whether I belonged “to the tribe”. It took me some time to understand that he was asking me if I was a Jew. It seems that American Jews refer to themselves in this way.)

The “tribes” of Libya would be called in Europe “ethnic groups” and in Israel “communities”. The term “tribe” has a patronizing connotation. Let’s drop it.

“All those who decry NATO’s intervention must answer a simple question: who else would have done the job? Humanity in the 21st century humanity cannot tolerate acts of genocide and mass-murder, wherever they occur.”

All those who decry NATO’s intervention must answer a simple question: who else would have done the job?

Humanity in the 21st century humanity cannot tolerate acts of genocide and mass-murder, wherever they occur. It cannot look on while dictators butcher their own peoples. The doctrine of “non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states” belongs to the past. We Jews, who have accused mankind of standing idly by while millions of Jews, including German citizens, were exterminated by the legitimate German government, certainly owe the world an answer.

I have mentioned in the past that I advocate some form of effective world governance and expect it to be in place by the end of this century. This would include a democratically elected world executive that would have military forces at its disposal and that could intervene, if a world parliament so decides.

For this to happen, the United Nations must be revamped entirely. The veto power must be abolished. It is intolerable that the US can veto the acceptance of Palestine as a member state, or that Russia and China can veto intervention in Syria.

Certainly, great powers like the US and China should have a louder voice than, say, Luxemburg and the Fiji Islands, but a two thirds majority in the General Assembly should have the power to override Washington, Moscow or Beijing.

That may be the music of the future, or, some may say, a pipe dream. As for now, we live in a very imperfect world and must make do with the instruments we have. NATO, alas, is one of them. The European Union is another, though in this case poor, eternally conscience-stricken Germany, has paralyzed it. If Russia or China were to join, that would be fine.

This is not some remote problem. Gaddafi is finished, but Bashar al-Assad is not. He is butchering his people even while you read this, and the world is looking on helplessly.